By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(15)

She walked into her room, ready to grab her tote bag and her suitcase and leave. She’d drive to LA, maybe see if she could still get on that original flight at LAX, maybe just stay at an airport hotel that night until her flight the next day, whatever. She just had to get the hell out of here.

She grabbed her suitcase, then stumbled. And then she sat down hard on the bed.

Oh no. The wine. She’d had two glasses of wine—two large glasses—in the past hour. Less than an hour really. And all she’d eaten today was breakfast at the hotel, a granola bar on the road, and three bites of a fish taco. And while she wasn’t exactly drunk, she was certainly tipsy. She couldn’t drive anywhere now, much less all the way back to Los Angeles. She could kick herself for asking Michaela for wine in the first place.

Now she just had to sit here, in this stupid, perfect room with the incredible view and comfortable bed and glorious bathtub, and wait until she was sober enough to drive.

She wished she could tiptoe downstairs and get some food. A few more tacos would certainly help absorb all of that wine. But Beau was probably sitting there in the dining room eating the entire platter of food like some lord of a manor; she couldn’t ruin her dramatic exit by walking back in to pick up her plate.

She dug through her tote bag to see if she had any more snacks in there. Nothing.

She sat there fuming for ten minutes. She was mad at herself for not stocking her bag with more snacks…no, wait, she was mad at herself for eating all her snacks already, she was mad at Beau Towers for being such a jerk, and she was mad at California for being so stupid and big that she’d had to rent a car to drive to his house instead of just taking a rideshare like in a civilized place.

Was that a knock at the door?

Normal Izzy would have gone to the door, smiled at that jerk Beau Towers, and told him yes she knew he wanted her the hell out of his house, she was on her way. But angry, tipsy, out-of-character Izzy ignored the knock. Even though she thought for a second it might be Michaela, who maybe hadn’t actually left, who maybe had come all the way up the stairs on her sprained ankle, she didn’t move. No matter who was at her door right now, she didn’t want to deal with them. Thank goodness whoever was there went away after just two knocks.

A few minutes later she got up. She definitely wasn’t okay to drive yet, but she’d just go out to the car with her stuff anyway, sit there, and sober up, instead of here. Plus, she’d been sure she’d had a bag of potato chips; maybe it had fallen out of her bag in the car.

She slung her tote bag over her shoulder and grabbed her suitcase. She opened the door and stopped. There, sitting in front of her door, was a tray full of food. A plate of fish tacos—her half-eaten one, plus three more—a bowl full of slaw, and a stack of chocolate chip cookies. And another glass of wine.

Where had all this come from?

She poked her head out the door and looked from side to side. No one was out there. So she picked up the tray and brought it back inside the room and kicked the door closed on the way.

It must have been Michaela at the door, after all. Now Izzy felt bad that she hadn’t answered it. Michaela had come all the way up those stairs with a sprained ankle, carrying all this food. Izzy hoped Beau paid her very well.

She should probably refuse to eat this, out of principle or something, but she was too hungry and still too tipsy to be worried about principles. She picked up her half-eaten taco and finished it. It was still just as good, even lukewarm.

It wasn’t until she reached for her second taco that she saw the ripped piece of paper under the bowl of slaw. She pulled it out.

Sorry—B



Wait.

Was this note…from Beau Towers? Was the food from him, too? Did that mean that Beau Towers had filled a tray full of food and climbed up the stairs and left it at her door? Did that mean this was an apology? From him?

That seemed so unlikely as to be impossible. Granted, it was only a one-word apology, signed by just an initial, but still. He didn’t seem like the type to apologize to anyone, let alone someone like her.

She was too hungry, and had already had too much wine, to figure this conundrum out. She picked up another taco.

After she finished all four of the tacos, she sat back and realized how tired she was.

She yawned. She’d woken up at six this morning for no good reason, she’d been running on adrenaline all day, she’d had two glasses of wine and a huge meal, and all she wanted to do was take a hot bath in that big, beautiful bathtub and then get in that enormous, fluffy bed over there and go to sleep.

No, no, she couldn’t. She stood up and went into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face. She just had to pull herself together, that’s all.

But when she walked into the bathroom, she saw the bathtub again. And she could swear—she could swear—she heard a little voice say, “A bath is just what you need right now, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I actually do think that!” Izzy said to the bathtub. “But…”

Wait. But what? Beau Towers hadn’t actually told her to leave. Her new flight wasn’t until tomorrow evening. She didn’t have to go anywhere tonight. She could just lock the bedroom door, run a hot bath, eat one, or maybe all, of those incredible-looking chocolate chip cookies, read one of the mystery novels on her e-reader, and just…relax. Without her mom or dad knocking on the bathroom door to say, “You okay in there?” or to ask her to pick up groceries the next day, or tell her about what her aunt Georgia said on the phone that day. Oh God, that sounded amazing.